Some people are so hungry for power that they forget they actually have to understand the work.

So, what would you do if an ambitious superior demanded a legally timed report “ASAP” just to prove her authority over you? Would you do as she asks to avoid problems with her? Or would you make things a little harder for her?

In the following story, one medical professional finds herself in this situation and decides on the latter. Here’s what she did.

Kind of a malicious compliance: social climber on a power trip wanted a report ASAP

This woman was the most ambitious person, with no scruples at all. I’ve never met someone like her, and hope I won’t again.

Her tricks ranged from cancelling the printing of other colleagues’ reports so that they wouldn’t arrive on time to falsely accusing a coworker of ****** harassment. She was an incompetent coworker, yet extraordinarily gifted for politics, and eventually got promoted.

I tried not to associate with her. She seemed dangerous, and I already had a job offer elsewhere. But then my commanding officer fell ill, and she replaced him.

The woman’s attitude was terrible from the start.

She came to my office to demand a report of a scan happening the evening of the previous day.

“We have 48 hours to do it,” I told her.

“Well, that’s what you say, but now I am your superior, and you have to respect me if I tell you I want it asap,” she replied

To which I responded, “I don’t say so, the law says so. But no worries, you know I never take more than 12 hours to finish those reports.”

It seemed like she just wanted to appear “in charge.”

She said, “Well, then, before noon I want it in my inbox.”

“No problem.”

She was this person who didn’t understand the fundamentals of image generation, nor did she have spatial vision for locating a lesion using anatomical references.

She wrote the longest report he’d ever written.

I took my time to describe the findings of that image and filled the report with technicalities and references that I knew must be incomprehensible to her, but that a competent person would have understood perfectly well.

It was a pretty long and exhaustive report. The longest I’ve ever written. Even without technicalities, there was a part of refined language that I knew she wouldn’t understand either.

She couldn’t sign the report without understanding it. Nor could she complain to the big boss, because it would give away that she couldn’t understand a thing.

Apparently, the woman went back and redid it.

I signed it and left it in her inbox way before noon, licking my lips, waiting for her to come to me again and ask me to simplify it. But, of course, with that, she was also embarrassing herself. What would be her strategy? I finished other tasks and went to have lunch.

When I came back, I found that the report had already been signed by her as definitive. She deleted it entirely and wrote a new one, pretty simplistic, in her style. Knowing of her little competence, it must have been pretty hard for her.

She would never harass me again during the remaining months I was there before moving out. I still feel evil when something reminds me of this, but it was also relieving to be able to work in peace, the remaining time I had there.

Too funny! It sounds like she deserved it.

Let’s see how the people over at Reddit handle things like this.

Yeah, what this person said.

She sure was.

This sounds about right.

Yes, there is.

She should’ve known better than to push, because that usually never ends well.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.